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Category Archives: Utah

In Spring 2015, we returned to southwest USA to experience lesser-known, yet remarkable hikes and sights shown in the following day-by-day gallery:

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The Colorado Plateau (centered upon the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico) has the highest concentration of parklands in North America. You could spend a lifetime exploring the astounding natural wonders of this remarkable desert region.

** Leprechaun Canyon (on BLM land 8 miles north of GCNRA on Highway 95)

** Natural Bridges National Monument

Needles District of Canyonlands NP

** Lost Canyon and Peekaboo Arch

* Slickrock Trail

* Cave Spring & Historic Cowboy Camp

* Needles Outpost Campground has nice *** hot showers to wash off the desert dust. (The scenic ** Canyonlands National Park’s Squaw Flat Campground was full on Thursday and Friday during Easter week 2015.)

** Shay Canyon’s petroglyph gallery (on BLM land outside of Canyonlands National Park, a few miles up the highway from Newspaper Rock)

We skipped ** Moab this year because its campgrounds were overbooked due to the crowded Easter Jeep Safari (Saturday, March 28 – Sunday, April 5, 2015), and instead headed into less-crowded spring destinations in Colorado:

* Dallas Divide, Colorado (a pretty pass in the San Juan Mountains which will look fantastic with *** fall foliage colors on some future trip)

From March 15 to April 9, 2014, my wife Carol and I drove our VW Eurovan Camper from Seattle to Texas (6000-mile loop), gathering images in great parks in Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Texas and California. The trip photos are shown below in day-by-day order.

Favorites (from March 15 to April 9, 2014 road trip)

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All photos (from March 15 to April 9, 2014 road trip)

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See also my related articles which consolidate our multiple trips by state:

Visit Utah to be amazed by the world’s best concentration of colorful desert canyon scenery, as illustrated in the following galleries by nature photographer Tom Dempsey. As of 2015, Utah has attracted me to visit 16 times, more than any other area in the world! Related articles: Southwest USA (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah) and Texas.

Utah favorite images

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Parks of Utah

Galleries below include photos with detailed captions from the following impressive parklands:

Zion National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park, near Moab

Arches National Park

Moab area: BLM land

Natural Bridges National Monument

Goblin Valley State Park and nearby BLM slot canyons

Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument, and nearby Shay Canyon on BLM land

Goosenecks State Park

Lake Powell and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, in Utah and Arizona

1. Zion National Park

Photos from Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah, by Tom Dempsey: The Court of the Patriarchs tower over the North Fork of the Virgin River. Hike the West Rim Trail to Angels Landing, Scout Lookout, and beyond, with snow on ground. A seasonal waterfall plunges from Weeping Rock. West Rim Spring plunges in a seasonal waterfall over desert varnish on a Navajo sandstone cliff seen from the Temple of Sinawava. Lichen grows into polygons. Snow melts on Checkerboard Mesa. Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja) flowers bloom.
Unusually diverse plants and animals congregate at Zion, where the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert meet. A free shuttle bus greatly improves park ambiance with quieter roads and less crowding.

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2. Bryce Canyon National Park

Sunrise and sunset make great photo opportunities in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. For example, sunset spotlights eroded hoodoos in the Queen’s Garden (one appears like a profile of Queen Elizabeth with gown). Bryce is actually not a canyon but a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. The ancient river and lake bed sedimentary rocks erode into hoodoos by the force of wind, water, and ice.

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Starting an hour before sunrise, we drove from Arch View Resort up to photograph Mesa Arch in Canyonlands NP. Standing room for the best photographs at Mesa Arch viewpoint is limited to about a dozen people looking through the arch to distant sandstone buttes. On Palm Sunday April 9, 2006, Mesa Arch was crowded with other photographers until an hour after sunrise when I could finally move in my tripod. If you want the best tripod spot and fewer photographers, try arriving 40 minutes before sunrise, midweek, and avoid Easter week.

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6. Moab area: BLM land

Near Moab in Utah, we recommend the following great hikes on BLM federal land. [The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior that administers American public lands.]

Corona Arch: Hike 3 miles round trip up Bootlegger Canyon to the half-freestanding Corona Arch, also called Little Rainbow Bridge, which has an impressive opening of 140 feet wide by 105 feet high. Bowtie Arch is a cool bonus en route.

Hike Negro Bill Canyon to Morning Glory Bridge, a natural bridge of Navajo Sandstone spanning 243 feet, the sixth largest rock span in the United States.

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8. Goblin Valley State Park and nearby BLM slot canyons

Admire fanciful hoodoos, mushroom shapes, and rock pinnacles in Goblin Valley State Park, in Emery County between the towns of Green River and Hanksville, in central Utah. The light-colored Curtis Formation caps the reddish-brown suite of rocks called Entrada Sandstone where the park goblins form. On the desert floor bloom vetch flowers, in the pea family. Snow caps Mount Ellen, at the northern end of the Henry Mountains, rising prominently south of the park.

A short drive outside the State Park are some wonderful hikes on BLM land. Hike the memorable 9 mile loop up Little Wild Horse Canyon and back down Bell Canyon. Scramble up and down sandstone ledges, through occasional shallow water holes and fascinating narrow slots. Ding Canyon and the main Wildhorse Canyon are also worth visiting. On the other side of the reef is Crack Canyon, one of our favorite places to see an amazing variety of rock patterns, 4 miles round trip (or longer if you can surpass a rope ascent and more obstacles). The Navajo and Wingate sandstone of the San Rafael Reef was uplifted fifty million years ago into a striking bluff which runs from Price to Hanksville, bisected by Interstate 70 at a breach fifteen miles west of the town of Green River. The San Rafael Reef (and Swell) is one of the wildest places left in Utah

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9. Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument, and nearby Shay Canyon on BLM land

Newspaper Rock: The cliffs that enclose the upper end of Indian Creek Canyon are covered by hundreds of ancient Indian petroglyphs (rock carvings), one of the largest, best preserved and accessible groups in the Southwest USA. The petroglyphs have a mixture of human (feet, figures), animal (deer, pronghorn, buffalo, horse), abstract and material forms of uncertain meaning. Starting about 2000 years ago, humans have chipped away the dark natural desert varnish to reveal lighter colored Wingate sandstone beneath.

Shay Canyon petroglyphs: Nearby on BLM land, an unmarked trail crosses a creek and leads up the wash of Shay Canyon to a remarkable gallery of petroglyphs including flutists, mountain sheep, abstract human figures, and a long-necked bird.

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11. Lake Powell and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, in Utah and Arizona

Below, view photos from Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell, in Utah and Arizona: Willow Creek Canyon, Broken Bow Arch, Llewellyn Gulch, petroglyphs of bighorn sheep chipped into desert varnish, pink cactus flower, frog held in hands, Bishop Canyon, LaGorce Arch, Hite Crossing Bridge (built 1966), and Hite Marina high and dry above the Colorado River in 2015 (at the former upstream limits of Lake Powell). I also photographed an interesting Anasazi kiva (ceremonial room) restored at Three Roof Ruin, on Escalante River Arm of Lake Powell. Just 8 miles outside the park, don’t miss the elegant slot of Leprechaun Canyon in North Wash on federal public BLM land between Hanksville and Hite.

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13. Dinosaur National Monument, Utah

Visit the real Jurassic Park at world-famous Dinosaur National Monument. The park’s Carnegie Dinosaur Quarry displays a spectacular logjam of fossilized Jurassic dinosaur bones protected by the huge Quarry Exhibit Hall. Although most of the monument is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is in Utah near Jenson. Dinosaur National Monument is on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains straddling Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. The only Apatosaurus skull in the world was found here because the sand-sized sediment preserves bone in great detail without compressing its fragile bones. Later discoveries of so-called “Brontosaurus” bones are a misnomer, as all bones of this sauropod (long necked dinosaur) should now be labeled Apatosaurus. More photos by Tom Dempsey include: Camarasaurus skeleton, Apatosaurus louisae leg bones, Allosaurus head, stegasaurus plate, ancient American petroglyphs, and Split Mountain Campground’s colorful geologic formations. Not all dinosaurs are extinct, since birds are actually the descendants of small nonflying theropods.

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Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area overlaps both Arizona and Utah. Fossilized sand dunes have eroded into the Coyote Buttes striated formations such as “The Wave.” Over 190 million years, ancient sand dune layers calcified into rock and created “The Wave” in the northwest corner of Arizona near the Utah border. Iron oxides bled through this Jurassic-age Navajo sandstone to create the salmon color. Hematite and goethite added yellows, oranges, browns and purples. Over thousands of years, water cut through the ridge above and exposed a channel that was further scoured by windblown sand into the smooth curves that today look like ocean swells and waves. For the permit required to hike to “The Wave”, contact the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), who limits access to protect this fragile geologic formation.

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